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Microsoft Patents Sudo's Behavior
Foofoobar writes "Just when you thought all was safe on the crazy patent front, Microsoft has come out of the obvious patent closet to file patent number 7617530, which basically duplicates the functionality of 'sudo' which is found in all Linux systems. PJ over at groklaw has a wonderful writeup on the entire fiasco."
It's US patent system's fault, not Microsoft. They have to file these to cover their own ass. And actually I haven't ever seen MS patent trolling, they've even gave their patents to organizations which purpose is to keep them open. Even the TomTom vs. Microsoft case was because TomTom attacked MS first and they had to counter.
Patent system is the one to blame.
macos x has been doing this since its inception.
gksudo has been around for a long time as well.
this is NOT new.
You've said this in at least two different posts, yet failed to indicate what those do that this patent covers. For example, OSX doesn't present an interface with a "selectable help graphic", the selection of which causes display of other accounts that have a right to permit the task, based on frequency of use, association with the user, and an identified higher-rights account that can permit the task. And that's just three of the limitations of claim 1. I doubt gksudo does them either.
Thanks for telling us that those claims are too complicated for you to read. Please make sure to put that on your resume, because if I was a potential employer looking to hire you for anything even remotely technical, I'd want to know that you give up whenever a discussion gets remotely above the complexity of "M$ sux0rz."
That's not a technical description: it's legalese. I've done my share of technical writing, ranging from scientific journals articles to user and developer documentation, but I'd never be able to get away with producing such incomprehensible gibberish.
copyright doesn't protect against duplicating functionality - only copying the exact binaries/source code. If I want to write my own sudo replica, copyright doesn't stop me... but a patent would.
That is one of those statements where both sides shout "EXACTLY", and then stare at each other.
And actually I haven't ever seen MS patent trolling,
Their shakedown of camera vendors and threats to OS implementors over the VFAT patents are a classic case of patent trolling.
The technology covered by the patents no longer has any intrinsic value, because nobody uses OSes that don't support long filenames. The only reason to use the long/short filename conversion in VFAT is purely circular: to ensure compatibility with VFAT itself.
Thus, these patents only remaining purpose in life is to create a barrier to entry in the markets that Microsoft operates in. The technology covered by them is is providing no end-user benefit, and consumers are paying royalties and getting nothing in return other than a less competitive market.
Law is the programming language for the system of society. The problem is, rather than doing exactly what you told it to do, regardless of whether that's what you wanted it to do, the system makes every possible effort to interpret the code in such a way so that it doesn't have to do what you instructed it to do.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time